Activist Readings of Capital

The 1960s represented a conjuncture that gave rise to new readings of Capital and to identity-based epistemologies, or ways of thinking that presented themselves antagonistically to each other. The 2010s presented another conjuncture. This time there were efforts at their unification or reconnection, through ideas such as racial capitalism and social reproduction feminism, which entailed reopening 60s history. My talk will sort through the major efforts of the 2010s to conceptualize Marx's theory of value in relation to race and gender, and in so doing, also propose to render a judgment as to what of those ideas---from the standpoint of the nightmare of our 2026 present---is still living and what is dead.